Bruins GM Chiarelli gets just reward

For the last 26 months, Peter Chiarelli has rewarded the players who led the Bruins to their first championship in 39 years. Now Chiarelli is getting his own reward for his role in two Stanley Cup Final appearances in three years.

By Dan Cagen/Daily News staff

MetroWest Daily News, Framingham, MA

By Dan Cagen/Daily News staff

Posted Aug. 29, 2013 at 12:01 AM
Updated Aug 29, 2013 at 7:55 PM

By Dan Cagen/Daily News staff

Posted Aug. 29, 2013 at 12:01 AM
Updated Aug 29, 2013 at 7:55 PM

» Social News

For the last 26 months, Peter Chiarelli has rewarded the players who led the Bruins to their first championship in 39 years.

The general manager handed out contract extensions like a political candidate giving away campaign flyers. Eleven players got big bucks from the Bruins.

Now Chiarelli is getting his own reward for his role in two Stanley Cup Final appearances in three years. The Bruins announced a four-year extension with the general manager Thursday that will keep Chiarelli working on Causeway Street through the 2017-18 season, which will be his 12th year at the post.

The 49-year-old is entering the final season of the four-year extension he signed in 2009. The latest extension comes as a reward as the Bruins have gone from also-ran to underachiever to annual contender in Chiarelli’s seven years in Boston.

The Bruins have made the playoffs the last six seasons; in the Eastern Conference, only the Penguins have a longer streak. Chiarelli has molded a winner while cultivating a style of play congruent with the snarl expected in the Spoked-B franchise.

The extension shows Boston ownership is pleased with the product Chiarelli has rolled out and has faith in his plan for sustained success. Assistant general manager Don Sweeney is waiting in the wings to run his own front office, but Chiarelli’s presence likely means that will be elsewhere, if and when it happens.

The Bruins are set up to contend for championships for several years. Through the 2015-16 season, Chiarelli has seven players locked up, a list that reads like an All-Star lineup: Patrice Bergeron, Zdeno Chara, Loui Eriksson, Milan Lucic, Chris Kelly, Brad Marchand and Tuukka Rask.

All but Kelly have a chance to play in the Sochi Olympics.

With that core in place, there’s reason to believe the Bruins could keep their window of opportunity for winning Cups open longer than expected in a salary cap era, an indicator of Chiarelli’s work.

Chiarelli's success has come in development and trades, then locking up the right core pieces. He transformed the appearance and path of the formerly frugal franchise in his first weeks on the job in the summer of 2006 when he signed the hulking defenseman Chara, as well as No. 1 center Marc Savard to big contracts.

In the years since, Chiarelli has mostly eschewed the free agent market, building the roster in other ways.

Other players that have come up through the system under the GM's watch — although not all drafted or acquired by Chiarelli's regime — include Marchand, Adam McQuaid, Rask and Torey Krug.

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Of the current players on the Bruins roster, Chiarelli is responsible for acquiring all but five.

With owner Jeremy Jacobs now giving the thumbs-up to open the checkbook, Chiarelli has been aggressive in locking up his own stars. Just this summer he spent a combined $108 million on Rask and Bergeron, and last year he committed a total of $70.5 million to Marchand, Lucic and Tyler Seguin.

About 10 months later, Chiarelli reversed course on Seguin, finding a taker for the 21-year-old that the Bruins no longer believed in before the new contract took effect. Chiarelli acquired a proven scorer in Eriksson and three prospects.

But trading the No. 2 overall pick in 2010 hinted at Chiarelli's major weakness, which has been finding NHL talent in the draft. On the current Boston roster, only Dougie Hamilton was drafted by the Bruins during Chiarelli's tenure. Earlier this summer, Chiarelli fired director of amateur scouting Wayne Smith, replacing him with Keith Gretzky.

Other hiccups include the hiring of coach Dave Lewis in 2006 and trading for the long-coveted Tomas Kaberle in 2011.

Chiarelli’s profile has risen with the success of his team. He just returned from Calgary, where he was at the Canadian Olympic orientation camp this week. Chiarelli is part of Hockey Canada’s management group under Steve Yzerman, and will help to select the final roster that goes to Russia in February.

A former Harvard forward with a degree in economics, Chiarelli went to law school at the University of Ottawa. He worked as a lawyer and agent for several years before joining the Senators front office, first as the director of legal relations and later the assistant general manager.

Chiarelli, team president Cam Neely and principal Charlie Jacobs will attend a press conference Friday to discuss the extension.

Dan Cagen can be reached at 508-626-3848 or dcagen@wickedlocal.com. Follow him on Twitter @DanCagen.